Bloomberg reported that Ternium SA was raised to buy at Goldman Sachs Group Inc on rising prices for the raw material and gains from its purchase of a stake in Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais SA.

Mr Marcelo Aguiar and Mr Diogo Miura, Goldman Sachs analysts in Sao Paulo, said that Ternium was upgraded from neutral and was given a 12 month price estimate of USD 27.80. The American depositary receipts declined 45% in the past 12 months to USD 22.64.

The premium Ternium and Tenaris SA paid for their BRL 5.03 billion acquisition of a 27.7% voting stake in Brazilian steelmaker Usiminas in November 2011 is priced into Luxembourg based Ternium's shares. The stock price doesn't yet reflect potential savings from the acquisition and future steel price increases in Mexico and the US.

The analysts said that "Significant underperformance relative to peers since mid November 2011 provides an opportunity to buy the stock. Ternium has one of the strongest management teams in the region with quality assets, and has strong value creation potential with expansions in Argentina and Mexico."

(Sourced from www.bloomberg.net)